Max Dehn

Max Dehn
Born(1878-11-13)November 13, 1878
DiedJune 27, 1952(1952-06-27) (aged 73)
NationalityAmerican
Alma materUniversity of Göttingen
Known forDehn invariant
Dehn's algorithm
Dehn surgery
Dehn's lemma
Dehn twist
Dehn function
Dehn plane
Dehn's rigidity theorem
Dehn-Sommerville equations
Dehn-Nielsen theorem
Scientific career
FieldsMathematics
InstitutionsUniversity of Münster
Goethe University Frankfurt
Black Mountain College
Doctoral advisorDavid Hilbert
Doctoral studentsOtt-Heinrich Keller
Wilhelm Magnus
Ruth Moufang

Max Wilhelm Dehn (November 13, 1878 – June 27, 1952) was a German mathematician most famous for his work in geometry, topology and geometric group theory. Dehn's early life and career took place in Germany. However, he was forced to retire in 1935 and eventually fled Germany in 1939 and emigrated to the United States.[1]

Dehn was a student of David Hilbert, and in his habilitation in 1900 Dehn resolved Hilbert's third problem, making him the first to resolve one of Hilbert's well-known 23 problems. Dehn's doctoral students include Ott-Heinrich Keller, Ruth Moufang, and Wilhelm Magnus;[2] he also mentored mathematician Peter Nemenyi and the artists Dorothea Rockburne[3] and Ruth Asawa.

  1. ^ The story of his travel in 1940 from Norway via Stockholm, Moscow, trans-Siberian train, Vladivostok, Japan to San Francisco is described in Dawson, J. W. Jr. (2002). "Max Dehn, Kurt Gödel, and the Trans-Siberian Escape Route" (PDF). Notices of the American Mathematical Society. 49: 1068–1075.
  2. ^ Max Dehn at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
  3. ^ Peifer, David (March 2011). "Max Dehn: An Artist among Mathematicians and a Mathematician among Artists". Black Mountain College Studies Journal. 1.